Sunday, April 05, 2009

Beer Tasting

We visited Henderson, NV for Tyler's spring break this year. I brought four of my Sheppy Brews along with me and the night before we left, Tracy's cousin and his wife joined us at Grammy and Papa Lou's house. I broke out the 4 beers and gave everyone a little taste of each of the four beers:

Overall, I was pleased with the reception of the beer. Everyone was very nice with their praise without over-doing it so that it felt pretty sincere.

As it is the lightest, we tasted Classic American Blonde Ale first. It was the favorite of the group. Grammy and Lisa are not really beer drinkers and Jerry and Papa Lou prefer light beers, so it is not a surprise that they would prefer my lightest beer. But, I do have to admit that it is a good beer, and based on this response and positive comments from my sister-in-law before, I am going to make sure I brew this again and that I keep this beer in stock. Unfortunately, this was my last bottle, so I will have to make more soonish.

The second beer we tried was the second lightest, 1776 Ale. 1776 Ale is a very hoppy amber ale. The liberty hops give the beer an almost pine like taste and I think is very similar to New Belgium's Mighty Arrow. 1776 was not as well-liked, but did not seem to be disliked. This was simply a case of the style not being what the group was used to. To be honest, I also have to be in the right mood to drink this beer.

The third beer was my Eric's Red, which is my favorite brew so far. This is a deep amber / almost (but not quite) red beer. You can taste hops on this one, but they are not nearly as strong as 1776. This is a more malty beer. The 2-week conditioning period was not done yet, but it was close enough that I figured it was ready to taste. So, it should be even better when I try it next. I think I will try to keep this beer in stock. My tasting group liked this one very much as well.

Maple Brown is my darkest beer so far, and the last one we tasted. It was a major disappointment to me and clearly the least favorite of the group. Unfortunately, there is a definite alcohol taste to this beer, which overpowers the malt. I was unable to taste the maple at all. I am surprised I disliked it so much because I thought it tasted pretty good when I bottled it. I will let it condition a bit more and continue to try it, but I do not think I will brew another maple beer again for a long time.

It was fun having this little tasting party. Everyone was very kind with their comments. Jerry said he would be my sales guy when I was ready to go commercial with my micro-brewery. Of course, I do not really have any plans to go commercial, but it is fun to think about it.